Artur Pawlowski, the Canadian preacher who has repeatedly made headlines for his defiant stance against COVID-19 restrictions, was arrested again Saturday.
Pawlowski, the pastor of Street Church and the Cave of Adullam in Calgary, Alberta, was reportedly detained after protesting alongside his brother, Dawid, outside the home of Jason Copping, the Alberta health minister, The Christian Post reported.
The brothers were subsequently released on bail Sunday. Lawyer Chad Haggerty told the CBC the Pawlowskis were on their way home from the protest — which included around 50 people — when authorities stopped them.
The charge against the brothers centers on their purported attendance at an illegal gathering in violation of a judge’s orders against them in legal disputes last year.
Premier Jason Kenney condemned the protest the Pawlowski brothers took part in, proclaiming that peaceful assembly shouldn’t include trespassing on elected officials’ property.
This is the second time the thugs at @CalgaryPolice have chosen a shock-and-awe arrest of a peaceful pastor. Dragging him into a busy street — this time in the middle of the night. That’s not police work. It’s politics. It’s humiliation. So gross. pic.twitter.com/tl9YiJ2hdz
— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) January 2, 2022
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that fringe anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists have tried to intimidate government officials in this manner,” Kenney said. “I am sure that the vast majority of Albertans reject this kind of extremism.”
Artur Pawlowski said on Facebook Sunday that he and his brother had been released from jail and were “standing strong.”
“When you stand with God and His righteousness and His truth you can not lose,” he wrote. “We will not be broken, we will not be defeated. In the end, we will win. Truth always wins!”
In a video posted on the same page, Pawlowski and his brother are seen being arrested.
An unnamed man recorded the ordeal as a police officer was seen coming up to the car window and telling the men they are “suspected in being in breach of some of your conditions.” This is presumably a reference to probationary restrictions placed on the men last year.
“You’re no better than the Nazis,” one man can be heard saying, with Artur Pawlowski also echoing some of these sentiments. The pastor at one point purportedly called an officer, “Gestapo Nazi.”
From there, the situation intensifies and the Pawlowski brothers are arrested. Artur Pawlowski is seen collapsing onto the ground, forcing officers to lift him into a vehicle:
Problems for Pawlowski, who is of Polish descent, began when the preacher declined to abide by government orders precluding him from holding church services during the pandemic, as Faithwire and CBN News have reported.
The preacher was arrested in May for holding worship services and was again taken into custody last fall when he was apprehended and handcuffed by police on the Tarmac of the Calgary International Airport.
Pawlowski first made headlines, though, in April, when he appeared in a now-viral video kicking health officials and police officers out of his church when they came to enforce government-induced mask mandates.
The pastor’s colorful descriptions of these authorities as “Nazi psychos” and “evil people” captured headlines and catapulted the video into social media feeds and headlines across the globe.
As Faithwire previously reported, the pastor scored a major legal victory in November when it was announced that “bizarre and unconstitutional provisions” slapped on Pawlowski, his brother, Dawid, and cafe owner Chris Scott, that restricted both speech and travel had been thrown out for the time being.
These provisions reportedly required Pawlowski to state the Canadian government’s preferred language and talking points after any COVID-19-related critique he made in public, The Christian Post reported.
It’s unclear what will happen next, but Saturday’s arrest adds yet another complex chapter into the mix.
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